


Too Much Pressure for a Fish

by fourthduckling



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, Pets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 19:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4233768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourthduckling/pseuds/fourthduckling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story Elliot tells Qwerty. It's mostly true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Much Pressure for a Fish

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to any place actually named Fish Frenzy, but the store is based on a real place.

Qwerty asks me sometimes where she came from. I tell her Thailand, but I know that's not what she's asking. I know that she's asking for The Story. The one I've told her a dozen times. I like that story, too.

This is what I tell her:

We were drunk. Angela was drunk. I was just a little high. It was 8pm, but it was okay, because I'd just got hired at Allsafe and we were celebrating. She had been worrying about me, but I was fine. I've always been able to prove my worth under pressure. At least in one area.

We went to a cafe first. The kind she likes, with the little white lights and French things on the menu. It was painfully nice of her, but she felt bad for making me go out in public, and started to drink. I took a couple of pills.

After that, it was better. When we walked home, she put her arm through mine. Her coat was blue, she smelled like wine, and she leaned against me ever so slightly. She looked beautiful under the lights of the shop windows advertising things that no one wanted.

"You know what you need?" she said, and I said, "No," even though I knew what was on her mind.

"You need a girlfriend," Angela said, patting me with an overly heavy hand. Her breath was on my cheek, hot and sour with drink. I looked at her, and her eyes are so blue it hurts. Her smile was wide.

"I don't want a girlfriend," I said. It was a lie.

"Yes you do," she insisted, her voice loud. She's never loud unless she drinks. "Your apartment is so bare, Elliot. You need a woman's touch."

"I'll buy curtains," I said, looking up and away into the night. Hers is the only woman's touch that I'd want.

"You have curtains," she said. "You need better curtains."

I need you, I thought. "So I need a girlfriend because my curtains suck." I smiled at her without looking at her, smiled out into the night and hoped it boomeranged back to her heart. I'm not a physicist, but someone once told me that energy cannot be destroyed, only changed or moved. I believe love is the same way.

"You need one because you're lonely," she said.

We were quiet after that, and I concentrated on walking, letting the little white pills do their work, letting her bump gently into me as she walked.

"I'm sorry," she said after a moment. "Elliot, I didn't mean to..." she trailed off and then repeated more sincerely than I would have expected from a drunk, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I said.

"I just don't like thinking of you living by yourself in that apartment. I don't like thinking of you alone." She squeezed my elbow.

Move in with me, I think, and then decide that I'm happier without her. But I wish she lived next door. Maybe she doesn't because she doesn't want to see me all the time. I get that.

"Hey," she said, tugging on my elbow. "Come here."

We ended up in an aquarium shop. Fish Frenzy. Not a nice, bright place, but a hole in the wall with a distinct smell of algae and fish food. The aisles were crammed with grubby tanks and exotic fish flashed inside them. Overhead loomed boxes full of bubblers and fake plants and rocks for the bottom of tanks.

I tell Qwerty that it was like digging for treasure. Or going on an underwater safari to find her. But it wasn't that nice. It was an ugly little place that made me pity the fish.

We moved from tank to tank and Angela put her hand in mine. My heart strained happily. I don't mind it so much when she touches me. It's everyone else that's a problem.

"Look at these," she said, pointing to a bank of little fish in too-small containers. They shone like jewels, flashing red, blue, black, and white. "Beta fish. Siamese fighting fish. They come from southeast Asia, from rice paddies. Sometimes the water is high and sometimes low, so they can actually live on land for a little bit if they need to."

Enduring. I liked that. I started at the top, watching fish after fish drifting through artificially blue water. They were all nice but none of them were right until I came to a red one, gills flared out, angrily swimming around as if it was unhappy with the tight container. I didn't understand how someone could keep a fish like this. It made me angry, too. I'd never felt a kinship with a fish before. I lifted the cup.

"She's beautiful," Angela said.

"She is a he," I said, pointing to the sign next to the little cups.

"She's trans. Don't descriminate," Angela said flippantly. Then she snorted with laughter. I smiled and very soon, I was laughing with her. It takes two whole minutes and an uneasy glare from the man at the counter before we calmed down. "I want to get her for you," Angela said finally, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. "I think company can be good for you. Even if it's just a fish."

"Okay," I said, even though I don't like it when she pities me. I picked up the angry little fish, and she instantly calmed down.

Angela bought me a tank, too. A small one. I bought everything else.

By the time we got home, we were both sober. We sat around the tank while we waited for the water to achieve perfect room temperature and watched the little fish swim around her cup. After a moment, Angela said, "What about Janet?"

"No," I said. "She doesn't look like a Janet."

"Scarlet?"

"Like Johansson?"

"With one t," Angela clarified.

"I don't think so," I say.

"Maybe something with computers or tech." Angela poked the empty tank. "Plasma? Oracle? Qwerty?"

"Qwerty. That's nice." The fish and my friend and me at my kitchen table. This was the perfect moment in time.

When we transferred Qwerty to her tank, she swam around vigorously for a little bit and then drifted in the middle, seemingly content. Angela moved the tank to the low table near the wall. "Now don't feed her until tomorrow. If she eats now, her stomach might get upset."

"Thank you," I said. I wanted to hug her, or maybe kiss her cheek. She wouldn't have wanted that, so I didn't. Instead, she tugs on one of my hoodie strings.

"Invite me over again soon. I don't want her to forget me."

"She won't. You named her," I said.

When Angela left, she was grinning.

This is where the story that I tell Qwerty ends. This is a happy ending for her. What I don't tell her is about what happened next, though she might remember. I sat by her tank that night, going over what I said, what I didn't say, what I should have done. I should have asked Angela to stay, told her that I wanted her to decorate my house with new curtains, thanked her for the meal as well as for Qwerty, maybe asked her out on a date. I didn't say these things aloud, but they ran through my head in loud recriminations.

I had about three hours of sleep on my first day of work, and I only got those because I finally started watching Qwerty drift around her tank, exploring the plastic plant and the little rocks. It was easier than a tranquilizer, and I sometimes use her swimming paterns to put myself to sleep now. It doesn't always work. When it does, I usually sleep better.

But I don't tell Qwerty that. It's too much pressure for a fish.


End file.
